Re: virus: Virus: Sociological Change
Matt Waggoner (mael1@ucla.edu)
Thu, 12 Dec 1996 10:14:21 -0800
At 10:03 12/12/96 -0600, Kenneth Boyd wrote:
>On Mon, 2 Dec 1996 jonesr@gatwick.geco-prakla.slb.com wrote:
>
>> Lior wrote:
>>
>>
>> > > > *Is there a format for society where change is easily obtainable if
the people want it?
>> > >
>> > > Anarcho-capitalism.
>> >
>> > Anarchy's good. What Drakir asks is actually whether we can create a
>> > functional society. Well yes. Almost. Once the tribal social structre
>> > <see Morris, Desmond> is satisfied, you can build an utterly functional
>> > society. I once developed a model for such a society, but it's too late
>> > to phrase it here.
>>
>> That is exactly what I'm asking, yes! I studied politics for 2 years, and
>> we looked at a number of theories about different parts of society, ie
Freedom,
>> Equality, government, democracy, etc...
>>
>> I have, all that time, not heard a convincing theory that totally covers
>> all aspects of the state, and makes them so that there is little to
criticize.
>> I really do wonder if there is such a thing as a "perfect" state.
>
>Under very mild assumptions, a "perfect democracy" is mathematically
>impossible. This result dates from the 1950's. The problem is that at
>large scales, "<" := "preference" fails to satisfy transitivity: a<b AND
>b<c does NOT imply a<c!
To paraphrase, "No government survives contact with humanity."
i.e. memetically speaking, there's no perfect government of any kind.
+------ Matt Waggoner - Maelstrom ------+
| www.seas.ucla.edu/~waggoner - mael1@ucla.edu |
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